Filming has begun in Los Angeles on Revolution Studios' Next, a science fiction action thriller starring Academy Award? winner Nicolas Cage, Academy Award? nominee Julianne Moore and Jessica Biel, it was announced today. The film, which is being directed by Lee Tamahori, will be released domestically by Columbia Pictures in 2007. IEG Virtual Studios, an affiliate of Initial Entertainment Group, holds the international distribution rights.

Next is being produced for Revolution Studios by Cage and his Saturn Films producing partner Norm Golightly, Broken Road Productions' Todd Garner, Initial Entertainment Group's Graham King and Arne Schmidt. The screenplay is by Gary Goldman and is based on the Philip K. Dick story "The Golden Man." Goldman, Jason Koernick and Ben Waisbren are serving as executive producers. Dick's stories have been the basis for such films as Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and the upcoming A Scanner Darkly.

In Next, Nicolas Cage plays a man with the unique ability to see future events and affect their outcome. Relentlessly pursued by the FBI, which is seeking to use his abilities to prevent a global terrorist threat, he is ultimately faced with the daunting choice of saving the world or the woman he loves.

EXCL: Next Producers Koornick and GoldmanComing Soon Wed, 25 Apr 2007
Two executive producers who worked on the movie gave ComingSoon.net a one-on-one interview recently about their latest project. During a relaxed conversation, Gary Goldman and Jason Koornick talked about the film and their enthusiasm on the writings of Philip K. Dick, author of the short story, "The Golden Man," which Next is based on.

I just came back from watching "NEXT". As you may know...most of the reviews for this movie have been negative. And trailers for movies make them out to be what they aren't, and tend to set the movie up for disappointment.

Also...I don't like how the movie industry uses PKD, saying that the movie is "based" on one of his stories. It would be like me producing a movie that takes place in deep space where there is an "evil" villian out to get three brothers. The evil villian destroys two of the brothers' ship...but the third brother prevails, as his ship is too strong and more technically advanced than his brothers'. And the evil villian is killed in the same fashion he killed our heros' brothers. Oh... the story is "based" on Three Little Pigs.

However, I'm glad to report that I was NOT disappointed with the movie. And, the trailer doesn't do the movie any justice.

Granted, the only "elements" that were taken from the PKD story, The Golden Man, were some of the character's names, the fact that the main character, Cris, is brought to a lab, and the fact that he can see into the future. The rest was created by the screenwriters. But...it still made for an interesting movie.

Despite the negative reviews, I really enjoyed the movie. I recommend this movie to anyone who likes action, and alternate reality scenarios.

"Next," the latest such undertaking, is definitely so-so at best; but it also falls into a new category of PKD adaptations ? if "adaptation" is the word. For this curious project, writer and producer Gary Goldman (who'd previously worked on "Minority Report" and "Total Recall," another PKD-based movie) acquired the rights to a 1954 Dick short story called "The Golden Man." Then he threw away the story, replaced it with an unrelated narrative of his own devising, changed the title, and shopped the resulting property to Saturn Films, a production company run by Nicolas Cage. Cage's reaction to Goldman's PKD-free script is quoted in the movie's press notes: "I admire Philip K. Dick; he's edgy and uncompromising, and his unique voice in writing translates successfully to films."

This is a bizarre thing to say about a story that has nothing to do with Dick's "unique voice," or with his writing in any way.

After seeing NEXT I must say that as far as Hollywood movies go I have seen far worse. But then again, I have seen far better as well.

3/4 of the way through I was getting bored of the gimmicks that they used throughout the film and I became even more disinterested as it turned into your basic Hollywood shoot-em-up.

But that's really nothing unusual or anything to be upset about as far as Hollywood films go.
We all know the basic formula of every new Hollywood action movie before we even set foot in the theater.

The problem here is that this film is being promoted as "Based on the novel The Golden Man by Philip K. Dick"

Sure there were a few interesting ideas sprinkled throughout the film but it never felt like a Philip K. Dick story to me and that's because it is not a Philip K. Dick story.
It is a Gary Goldman story with Phil's name slapped on it in order to guarantee a certain number of ticket sales from the Science Fiction community.

Instead of having one shred of loyalty to the brilliant stories of a brilliant writer Hollywood is attempting to turn Phil's name into a name brand and that's a real shame..

Too bad Phil is not around to stick up for himself.
As much as the changes to his story during the production of Blade Runner upset Phil, I know that he would have been devastated by what Gary Goldman has done with his name and his story in this film.